Time, the culprit

6.50 am Hari wakes up and says "I want the computer". Hey! first brush your teeth, then take a bath, then eat breakfast and then if you have time, we'll see.

For about half an hour I don't hear anything and I am busy getting breakfast and lunch ready. Suddenly I look at the time...

7.20 am HARI!!! WHERE ARE YOU?? YOU OUGHT TO BE AT THE TABLE NOW. OK MOM! Let me finish bathing.

I am at my wits end. I shout at the top of my voice in an effort to get something across. "Its going to be 7.30 and you have to leave at 7.50 am".

7.22 am Dad shows his face inside the bathroom and asks hari, "why are you making your mom shout?"

PAT came a reply, "I am not making mom shout. Its the time!"

Career problems for a 6 yr old

Not one morning passes by without Hari's polambals. He has to say atleast 23 times "I don't want to go school". These would be followed by lectures on
1. Its good for you
2. You don't want to be illiterate. Do you?
3. Don't you want to be a tech director like appa?
4. You have to do some work or the other to survive.
etc.. etc..

My next strategy was - "you have to look after cows." I was stunned when he said ok. Thats where Bala came in and dropped the right sentence "looking after cows means cleaning cowdung too!!" "oops" That was something my 6 year old could not imagine. The bum-cleaning is mommy's job. How can he do that? Okay, Mom, lets make a deal. I will take care of the cows, but the cleaning part, why don't you do it as always?

When that did not get any response from me, hari decided he will work at home like his mom. WOW! somebody wants to be like me! Thats something, coming from Hari who adores his dad! Now how do I tackle this? Lets see, ah ha, the bum cleaning comes again. Hari you have to clean your bro's diaper. Hows that? hmm.. now this is getting even more difficult.

Okay mom, Where's my uniform!!

All about family - where the extended becomes the included

Come Friday and I don't want it to come!! Before the weekend begins I am already planning how to stuff it with all the pending things. By Saturday afternoon I finished about 10% of the work and suddenly I remembered Bala's cousin's husband was on his way.

He wanted to meet two more cousins and Bala's mami too. It was easier to meet at one place. All of them arrived and plans for having dinner in a restaurant surfaced. Of late we are very hesitant to go out for dinner 'cos both kids become cranky and managing them becomes a huge task, leaving us no enthu for social talk. But all cousins and Mami were too geared up to go out and kept insisting we are all there to take care of sundu and hari. Hari had three more people to pose his questions. He was excited to get answers which are much different from the usual... "you talk too much" or "thats not for you" or "okay I am your mom, so do as I say" or "ENOUGH" as finale.

It was so good to manage the kids with all of them to help that we ended up staying awake as late as 11 pm... (its very late for me 'cos I go to sleep at 9 pm)

Till a year ago I had not moved close with any of them, as is the case with most of the extended family. Over the past few months, its beautiful to see that the extended have become the included!

!! Stop the Peter/munna/munusami !!

Peter or petering is a slang that is widely used to denote those who love to show off their knowledge (or ignorance) in something that is totally alien. For eg., I was somebody who did not know a thing about the computer, net, middleware etc etc. After marriage, I started petering about CORBA and middleware (thanks to the evil of continuous checking of emails and writing code by my husband). The boyz/galz who drank tea from the local potti kadai till yesterday, say today, " you see, in the US where (pronounced whezh) ..." Thats petering for you. Guys who want to fit into a crowd try stuff like seeing vonly inglis philims and hate anything that has to do with bollywood, tollywood, kollywood, follywood and any other letter you can add at the beginning.

Munna is our hindi peter. Despite not having crossed the borders of Tamilnadu, our munna loves to sprinkle his speech with accha, nahi yaar, and chalte hain... She sees sirf hindi philims. Her favourite is Shah rukh, Aamir, Rani and Kajol. "Who will see tamil movies? I am a city bred gal."

Munusami/tamizh peter is a bit complicated. "We see tamizh movies but only those Mani Ratnam". "Saratkumar, Prabhu? no way. Kamal? definitely yes." They are the intellectuals who think every movie has to be of Satyajit Ray standard. Magazines like kalki and kalaimagal satisfy their curiosity and the rest (kumudam, kalkandu etc) are trash.

So today, by the power (of expression) vested in me, I hereby solemnly decry the parupputhanam of Peters, munnas and munusamis of the world.